Being a 'gossip' is good for your reputation

People like to share gossip rather than receive it because dispensing rumours
suggests they are in the know

The study showed that passing on rumours could help us monitor people who behave badly and prevent each other from being exploited by malicious individualsPhoto: REX

By Agencies

10:24AM BST 15 Aug 2014

Gossip is good for your reputation because it shows you are in the know, according to new research.

And we most enjoy dishing the dirt about familiar people - and the more damaging the better.

Psychologists say at the same time it improves our social standing as a font of information about those we care about.

Dr Bo Yao, of the University of Manchester, said: "Intuitively, it is not surprising we are more likely to gossip about familiar people and interesting stories. However, we are much more likely to gossip when a story unites a familiar person with an interesting scenario."

An experiment including celebrities such as David and Victoria Beckham and Barack and Michelle Obama found the more interesting and unpredictable the story, the more likely we are to pass it on.

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The researchers said "a key function of gossip may be to maintain our reputation systems by receiving updates on the recent behaviour of our acquaintances."

To understand the psychological triggers for gossip, the researchers devised an experiment involving a series of fictitious stories.

In the study, they asked participants to read a series of fictitious stories about 100 famous British and US individuals and matching non celebrities such as 'Jamie and Connie Shannon' and 'Robert and Theresa O'Hara' and indicate how likely they would be to share them with friends.

In each case, the volunteers also provided feedback on its predictability and whether their opinion of the main character had changed.

The made up scenarios were considered either 'interesting' like getting pregnant, having a 'domestic' in public and being caught with drugs or 'boring' in which they were doing things such as having coffee or going grocery shopping.

The findings published in PLoS ONE showed when a story was considered less predictable and resulted in a greater change of opinion about the person, participants were more likely to pass on that information.

Dr Sara Sereno, of the University of Glasgow, explained: "Gossip revolves around its content and its target. To us, a good piece of gossip should be judged as information worthy of being passed on to those who are well placed to appreciate its content. In other words, gossip is interesting stuff about someone we care about."

She added: "Gossip plays a big role in how we manage our social reputations. We hope our study provides a first step in understanding the specific factors that influence our gossiping behaviour."